Improving on self-improvement

Last night I chatted with the assistant director of our department (and the instructor of our graduate seminar). I have tremendous respect for this young Ph.D. for his passion and scholarly accomplishments. I've even been thinking lately that I would take advantage of the university's tuition remission to pursue a graduate certificate or even a Ph.D. After all, why not?

But then the AD confessed to me that he no longer enjoyed reading—students' papers ruined his taste for it, and his nights, weekends, and summers filled with scholarly research don't leave much time for it.

I was awe-struck. How could someone so passionate have lost his love for what drove him into the discipline? After all, writers are nothing without their readers.

Since this conversation, I've been rethinking my goals. Besides the fact that earning additional degrees will monopolize my spare time for the next several years, I hate the idea that it may also dictate the rest of my life—and alienate me from the reasons why I became a teacher.

Does it make me a bad teacher for not wanting to pursue my own education? I of course value education highly, but perhaps I've been tainted by the belief that I need formal education to be well-educated. It's my hope that having my own hobbies, and my own reading list, will make me a more complete person and therefore a better teacher.

A Matter of Priorities

Recently I spoke with some graduate students who asked me about my diet. I explained that being gluten-free is challenging, but it helps that I make so much of my food from scratch: chicken stock, sausage, pickles, cheese, the yogurt I was eating at the time. One of them asked, incredulously, "How do you find time for all this?"

I replied, "I make time for my priorities."

As I said it, I thought about my blog—my poor, neglected blog—that's only had two new posts in the past two months because I just haven't had the time. My heart sank a little.